WHEN Odumegwu-Ojukwu sneezes, the nation catches cold. That is to be expected. General Ojukwu showed his paces in war. He led one of the most famous wars of the late 20th century. General Ojukwu led the people of the former Eastern Nigeria with its majority Igbo population in a war in self-defence when they became targets of a genocidal rage.

IN 1890, the French statesman Jules Francois Camille Ferry wrote, “an irresistible movement is bearing the great nations of Europe towards the conquest of fresh territories. It is like a huge steeplechase into the unknown…whole continents are being annexed…especially the huge black continent so full of fierce mysteries and vague hopes.”

LAST week, the famous Nigerian novelist, Chinua Achebe received an unlikely guest at his home in the Catskills. Nuhu Ribadu, Nigeria’s former anti-corruption cop went to see the sagely fabulist. It might have been a social visit, but one thing led to another, and soon Nuhu Ribadu and Achebe began to talk about the prodigal nation.

MY attempt this week is to bring some attention to the subject of the Asaba massacres, one of the haunting ghosts of Nigeria’s last civil war. I pay particular tribute to Emma Okocha – Onye Amuma Cable – author of Blood on the Niger, the chilling account of the Asaba massacres of October 7, 1967.

TWO weeks ago, in two separate interviews with Olu Falae, published by two Nigerian newspapers, one of which of course was the Sunday Vanguard, Nigerians were afforded a rare glimpse into the soul of the man. It was a troubled soul.

Nigeria has not managed to transcend the history of its colonial origins

The plans to retire an entire generation of civil servants from the position of directors, and cap the years of service of the permanent under secretaries of the Federal Civil Service announced recently by the current Secretary to the Federal Government of Nigeria, Steve Oronsaye is wrong headed policy.

I never knew Gani Fawehinmi in a deep and personal way, but he was of course, rested somewhere in my consciousness, as I’m sure he does in the consciousness of any Nigerian of my generation, as an inevitable testimony of true acts of public heroism. He was indeed the hero of the silent unrepresented; those we love to call the masses. He, therefore, somehow, seemed to belong to all of us.

Eastern and indeed many Middle belt international travelers have frequently demanded this upgrade for a number of reasons, chief of which is the inconvenience of always travelling to Lagos, Abuja or Kano, or even Port-Harcourt before they could board or even disembark from an international flight.

Military governors sent to the East, including those who were Igbo military officers, often thought their assignments to the East was a continuation of the civil war by other means. Their mandates, it seemed, was not to develop the East, but to slow it down.